Governor Of Herat, Afghanistan: We Treat Captives Humanely

Governor of Herat Ismail Khan, whose detachments control this northwestern province of Afghanistan and several neighboring ones, insists that his supporters treat their captives "humanely." General Ismail Khan, who regained the Governor's post three years after being captured by Taliban and escaping from a Kandahar prison to Iran, offered journalists to visit prisons and other places were prisoners are kept. "Many of the Taliban soldiers who voluntarily laid down weapons were released," stressed Ismail Khan. At this moment, according to the general, the number of Taliban captives under his guardianship amounts to 500 people, including about 30 high-ranking officials of the former regime, such as the governors of Samangan, Jawzjan and Badghis. In the meantime, according to the Pakistani newspaper The News, the International Committee of the Red Cross discovered the remains of almost 600 people outside Mazar-i-Sharif, a town in the northern Afghan province of Balkh, which the ethnic Uzbek general Abdul Rashid Dostum won back from Taliban. It is unclear whether these people were put to death or killed in action or US air raids, ICRC spokesman Oliver Durr told journalists. At the same time, official spokesmen for the Pakistani government assert that around 100 Pakistanis were executed in a madraseh /Islamic school/ of Mazar-i-Sharif after the town was captured.